


Memory lane

by katiebuttercup



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Molly Hooper Appreciation Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebuttercup/pseuds/katiebuttercup
Summary: Molly suffers from amnesia and Sherlock’s attempt to help her bring up a past Sherlock is eager to forget





	Memory lane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orionshuntingdog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionshuntingdog/gifts).



It happens in such a specific way that when Sherlock first hears of Molly’s accident his first thought is that Eurus has a hand in Molly’s misfortune. As it turns out it is simply bad luck.

It is a cruel twist of fate that weeks after he had found the truth of his feelings for Molly she had barely any memories of him. And the ones she did have-the ones from the beginning of their association were hardly the memories Sherlock was proud of.

Surrounded by people she regards as strangers-or as good as Molly is hesitant in his presence and John’s but slowly she was retaining memories, piecing her life together in much the same way he’s been doing since Sherrinford. At least Mollys memories doesn’t come with a body count. 

“I asked you out for coffee” 

Sherlock winces. He’d brought Molly to the lab hoping the tools of her trade would help jog her memory. The lab was where they were together most- had their most important conversations, their worst fights. His most damaging deductions. 

“....yes,” Sherlock acknowledes reluctantly, wishing she had picked a better memory. 

“You weren’t interested,” Molly says. He can’t quite put a name to her tone, but it twists something unpleasantly in his chest.

“I know,” Sherlock says, and God does he know. He was such an idiot. A blind, foolish idiot.

Molly shudders, she looks away, “it feels like yesterday, I...it..why do you have to be so horrible?” 

He flashes back to Christmas, another nail in his proverbial coffin. He has no excuses, no defense other than blind fear and arrogance. He’d tried so hard to excise sentiment that it made him cruel. 

Once Molly had meant nothing to him, a bland face whose usefulness extended only to what she could do for him. And then, without warning she was suddenly so important, the most important person, without him ever being aware of the change. It had scared him, it was an attack on his whole persona, his veneer. If Molly saw him as he truly was- a damaged yet brilliant man, terrified of a memory not quite remembered, then how could he be The Great Consulting Detective? 

 

“I’m not...I’m sorry,” Sherlock says helplessly, he can’t defend himself, she doesn’t have the context he does (thank you, Eurus) because for every bad memory Molly has he has a good memory, of Rosie’s christening, and dinner with the Watson’s but he can’t articulate that to Molly right now.

“I have pictures,” Sherlock offers, he takes the mini album out of his pocket, on loan from John. Mostly pictures of Rosie, the only thing that has brought a tentative smile from Molly. Maybe memories of Rosie would be easier to digest. 

Molly flicks through the album, pausing at the christening photo, one taken by Mrs Hudson. He and Molly stood together, he was frowning and Molly’s face was set with determination: she’d confiscated his phone when he refused to stop texting.

The next photos are of him and Molly, close together, talking, it’s blatantly obvious, their feelings, his feelings in these photos even though he’d been willfully blind to it. It’s there in Molly’s smile, in the way he stands close too close to her, the ease of their conversation, the way they talked like an old married couple. 

Molly pauses, her long slender fingers tremble over the film over the photos. 

“I can’t...I mean...” she breathes out noisily, “you tell me that things have changed -that you changed, that we’re friends but I..” she puts a hand over her heart, “it feels, in my heart...you barely give me the time of day, I...there’s a disconnect that I can’t get past”

He gets it. He does. He’s only just bridged the gap with the help of his sister and a countdown clock.  
How can he bridge that gap? How can he give Molly back those moments, helping him fake his death, slapping him when he was high, coming in to work on Christmas even when he yet again broke her heart? Coffee dates she had with mary, joking with John about his lack of popular culture knowledge

And the phone call. The scales falling from his eyes. They hadn’t broached that yet, he’s not ready to go over that ground again. Not when he’s alone on the ledge. Just like him mollys love had changed, deepened, and strengthened. They weren’t the same people they were even a few months ago. Sherlock looks back on his old self and can only shake his head. He’d been so much younger then. And stupider.

“I once told you you were the most important person to me,” Sherlock says, Molly scrunches her face, struggling to recall their shared moment. Recognition flashes in her eyes a moment later and Sherlock’s heart leaps. 

“I..we were in a hallway?”

Sherlock nods eagerly, “Yes, we solved crime together,” he doesn’t mention Tom or Janine they are just minutia, background noise even though Janine has taught him a valuable lesson on humility.

“I meant it Molly, it wasn’t the right time for us. It wasn’t the first time or the last time we connected that way. We wasted a lot of days, left lots of words unspoken,”

Eurus has some points he concedes, how ever heavy handed.

“Sherlock...”

A lot of the moments we have together aren’t in this album, because they are our moments, no one else was around,” Sherlock says. He feels like he’s swimming against a tide. It’s still new to him, this feeling, he’s still grappling with the idea that he could love, that he could love Molly Hooper.

Molly is a scientist, she needs data but memories are faliable and unreliable. And yet, and yet memories are all they have. 

“The doctors think your memory loss will eventually come back with no long term problems.” Sherlock says. He holds his hand out, a plea, “I want to help you find your memories, but I need you to trust me. I might not always behave like the memory you have of me. But I promise you, that everything I do now is the truth.”

Molly stares at his hand for a long time and then nods. Sherlock lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

The journey to find Mollys memory has started, at least now they are in it together.


End file.
